Future of Cloud Tools in Middle East

Information gotten and evaluated by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and regions (information centers) in the Middle East and North Africa exposed that the area's countries rely heavily on American companies for cloud services. The information reveals the presence of around 31 American centers, most of them in Gulf countries, while the variety of centers owned by Chinese companies reached about 7.

In the Gulf countries, more than 53% of the cloud infrastructure tracked there is American. Source: "Arabi Post" database of cloud service centers in the Middle East and North Africa (89 centers).

Within a few years, cloud service centers have actually shifted from a "technical choice" for decreasing server costs into vital facilities for the state and the economy: e-government websites, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of huge information, artificial intelligence, and more. The recent Iran war (2026) revealed a new dimension: the cloud itself can be straight and physically targeted, as occurred when Iranian drone strikes damaged Amazon AWS cloud service data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, triggering interruptions and service blackouts.

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The significance of American and foreign business does not stop at technical competition or service quality; it extends to digital sovereignty and concerns of control over data for these nations and their numerous delicate sectors. American companies undergo U.S. laws managing lawful access to data, such as the CLOUD Act, raising concerns about the limitations of judicial demands for information even when it is stored outside the United States.

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Area 2713 clearly obliges interactions and calculating service companies to maintain and reveal customer information within their "belongings, custody, or control, regardless of whether it is situated within or outside the United States" validating the point above., as presented by U.S

At the exact same time, professionals gotten in touch with by "Arabi Post" caution of the risks of concentrating agreements with American cloud service suppliers, and of the effect of "foreign jurisdiction" on personal privacy and security.

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people or homeowners who engage with individuals or companies in those countries where data centers run by American companies keep the data of those countries and their citizens. To understand the scope of this threat, it is essential to first analyze U.S. federal laws such as FISA Section 702 and the CLOUD Act, which governs U.S.

Although the CLOUD Act grants Washington broad authority to gain access to data stored in information centersthe massive facilities utilized by companies to shop and process informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities may be required to alert the government of the country worried that there is a legal basis compelling access to that information.

The U.S. federal government might also penalize or target any U.S. resident who participates in financial deals with that nation or sends out money transfers to individuals there. Abu Al-Saad also states that if a disagreement were to happen between that nation and Washington, the United States could suspend its data storage services for that nation and justify doing so.

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This would affect all sectors, including financial and banking services. In the context of the security dangers connected to nations' reliance on American information centers, another point likewise emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad thinks about the most crucial and most dangerous: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool called "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security firms. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the ability to compel significant innovation companies to hand over delicate data related to citizens or nations. Washington could, for example, force Amazon to open data records coming from users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or in other places, while "imposing a strict nondisclosure order that prevents the innovation business from notifying the Bahraini federal government or the targeted people that this gain access to has occurred.